Of Diaries and Forgotten Dreams
by TardisInWonderland
Summary: Ten accidentally takes a peek in River's diary, but what consequences result from the spoilers he finds? One shot.


_Written for a Doctor/River ficathon here: .?replyto=418280 _

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><p>Sometimes the Doctor doesn't tell people things. He keeps secrets from everyone, sometimes for his benefit, and sometimes for their own. One say he would meet someone with whom, for a time, there would be no secrets, but he didn't know that quite yet. He never told Rose he loved her. He never told Martha how much she meant to him. He never told Donna how completely and utterly fantastic she was.<p>

One other thing the Doctor didn't tell Donna was that when he left the Library, he brought River's diary with him. Spoilers, he'd said. He never planned to look, but sometimes it gets lonely in the TARDIS. Those days when all your companions have left and are off to better lives, and you're alone and spring cleaning. That's when he found it.

There it was, in the library of all places, which only added to the sting he felt when he caught a glimpse of a page. It had fallen off the shelf- he never meant to look, only to put it back, but then he saw it.

_I love him so much, but I-_

His hearts stopped.

He was a goner.

The Doctor flipped open the book, right back to that very page. It was an entry from a trip to the Singing Towers, the last time she'd seen the Doctor she knew. He didn't bother to read the entire entry, but skipped to the last paragraph.

_I love him so much, but I can feel him slipping away every single day. It makes my hearts break. I wonder if he felt like this, too? I would never wish it on anyone else, but after tonight I don't think I would change it either. I __know__ I wouldn't change it, not for the world. Though something tells me I won't get the chance to tell him that._

The Doctor felt tears come to his eyes and wiped them away, pulling off his glasses, which were really just for show. Back in the Library he hadn't wanted to admit the feelings that had emerged for her, but now, here, alone… it simply couldn't be helped. This beautiful, mysterious woman who knew everything about him, even his most closely guarded secret, and he'd practically shoved her away. Resentment for what happened with Rose, he supposed, but now Rose… she was happy. Or she should be, anyways- off in a parallel world with the other him.

He wouldn't let it happen to River. No, never again, not to anyone.

That was the downfall that made him keep reading.

The Doctor, in hindsight, didn't know where he started reading. He just flipped to a page and read. First it was one line, then two, and by the end of three entries he'd realized what he was doing and forced himself to stop. She was never very specific with people other than the two of them, perhaps as a safeguard should this moment ever come, but by the end of those entries he knew all he needed to know.

She loved him. And not just like a human loved- she loved him like a Time Lady loved. Forever, and without any reservations. She loved him regardless of personality or regeneration, or their timelines, or whatever he might do to her in whichever whenever they were. River Song was an utter impossibility, because she couldn't be a Time Lady, and yet… she knew things and did things as only a Time Lady could. And before, in the entry, she'd said "hearts," as in the plural. He kept reading, against his better judgment, I might add, flipping backwards.

_He can't know, can he? Octavian threatened to tell him, but he thinks it's just a threat to me, not to an entire time stream! Mum Amy can't know either. It's so hard to get used to, everyone not knowing you. The TARDIS is the only one left, and she only knows me because she exists everywhere and everywhen. But what's the good in being a Time Lady if you can't even control your _own _time, much less anything else? _

No. There was no way. And yet, there it was in front of him, right there in black and white. River Song, a Time Lady. A Time Lady who had died for him. Who knows, maybe he was supposed to find this out this way. And what he knew now was that he needed to find her, needed to change what had happened between them. Though, just how to do that was a mystery. Suddenly there was a flash and a sound like thunder.

"Doctor?" He heard a voice and jumped. A woman with blazing blue eyes and curly hair had appeared at the door, and was now walking towards him. She was different than he remembered, but still fairly similar in looks. River. Wait, River? How did she breach security?

"River! What the hell are _you_ doing here?" Completely ignoring the question, she stared at the book in his hands.

"What in the name of Rassilon _are you doing with my diary_!" She walked over and snatched it up, ruffling through the pages.

"How did you even get in here-"

"Doesn't matter. The TARDIS called me. How much did you read?" She tucked it into a pocket.

"Oh, a bit…" He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. River suddenly began to feel a bit dizzy. As a Time Lady she could feel something shifting, just a tiny, tiny bit…

"Doctor, can you feel that?" He nodded. The Doctor couldn't feel it as much as she could, being that it was affecting her more directly at this moment.

"Yeah, a bit." He thought for a moment, wondering why it was taking so long. "But why isn't it just… rewriting itself? It's like it's… waiting on something." River nodded, and the Doctor stood, putting his glasses in his pocket. She knew how to fix it- the Doctor wasn't supposed to find out what he had until years later, and that was about to rewrite some very crucial bits in her timeline. However, she'd been warned this would happen. So, in a way, this was supposed to happen, and what time was waiting on was her not to do what she needed to.

"Sit." She said, pointing at the couch.

"What?" He looked confused. "_Time's_ about to be _rewritten_ and you want me to _sit_?" She nodded, pulling him to sit beside her.

"What did you read?" River looked into his dark eyes, still not as familiar as the blue-green ones were, but just as loved. And still so very, very old. He finally took a breath and told her, spilling it out and eventually leading up to his chief question.

"You're… you're a Time Lady?" The Doctor asked, slightly dazed. River pursed her lips, trying to control her thoughts and her mouth at the same time.

"Yes. In short."

"All my people are gone. There isn't a short answer to this." He said, but she was silent. "How? How can you be like this? Tell me, please, because frankly I don't understand!" He stood, facing away from her. It made her hearts break to see him this way- so alone, so unhappy. The only small comforts were in the memories she had of better times that were still to come for him.

"I can't. Tell you." She said. "You've done enough without me spilling more."

"River, please. I know I shouldn't have read that, but now you seem like such… like such a fairy tale. You're complete and total fiction, you can't be real, you're just this… this anomaly, this…" He walked towards her, trailing off, and gingerly put a hand out to stroke her cheek, "perfect stranger who knows my every secret." He couldn't believe he was saying that. He'd had Rose, he'd loved her, but… River was… River was something else entirely. And now Rose was safe and happy... River smiled sadly and covered his hand with her own smaller one.

"I'm really not a stranger. And I'm anything but perfect, my love." Love. _Her_ love. His hearts jumped, and he found himself facing that familiar battle between heart and head, between what the soul wants and what the mind feels it needs. He couldn't bear it, and the mind won out when he dropped his hand. River's dizzy spell hadn't become much worse. She seemed to be on the right track.

"You know my name." His intellectual curiosity returned again, and he was back to the interrogating business.

"I have for a long time now." She looked him straight in the eyes, and he leaned in, almost subconsciously.

"Why?" River laughed, the sound sweet and threaded through and through with a new type of music.

"Sweetie, I think you and I both know the answer to that." They were close enough that he could taste her breath on his tongue, and she could see his eyes go ever so slightly out of focus before he forced himself to pay attention again.

"Well, if I were to ask…?" River grinned.

"Spoilers." He should have seen it coming, but the proximity between them was a bit distracting. Was it getting warm in here? Maybe just a bit? He cleared his throat so he could speak without choking on the tension in the air. Her smile widened just a bit at this, as River was absolutely loving the effect she was having on him.

"And… if I were to assume?" He asked, struggling to keep eye contact. His vision was beginning to blur just a bit.

"Hmmm… in that case…" She made a show of thinking about it for a moment or two, then leaned in the remaining few inches and kissed him.

He tasted the same. All his regenerations did, no matter what, just like little things would always be the same. The way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention, the way he smiled when he was being clever and he darn well knew it, and the way he never seemed to be able to keep out of trouble. After a stunned second his hesitantly kissed her back. Too soon for her liking she decided she'd better stop, and backed away to see a very red-faced Doctor sitting in front of her.

"Well." He said.

"Yes?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Seems I was right." The Doctor said.

To him, River was like a room full of locked doors. She had the keys to all of them, but he had to look for them. Hard. And no matter what was hidden behind her doors of secrets and spoilers, he felt that he'd only gotten and inkling of who she was to him. This paradox of a twisted fairy tale, this love that never should have been, this beautiful River Song…

Suddenly River's face twisted in pain and she doubled over.

"River? What's wrong?" He slipped an arm around her shoulders, concerned.

"I've waited too long. My timeline is changing." She was breathing hard and beginning to sweat. "Doctor, you have to… let me… suppress these memories." River said between gasps.

"What?" The Doctor was fairly opposed to that idea. River was a Time Lady, so it wouldn't be a problem to suppress those memories and set a time frame for when they should come back to him. The only problem was that he didn't want to forget. "River, I just found you, you can't-"

"Shhh, love." She said, placing a hand on his cheek. Her voice was raw and shaking. "You'll find me again, don't worry." It made him sick to see her like this- a small change in a very complicated time stream could be extremely painful to those who were sensitive to such things. He _had_ promised her… _Not those times. Not one line, don't you dare._

"Alright. What do you need me to do?" He said, making a decision. She took his hand.

"Open your mind. Let me in." After that he wasn't quite sure what happened, but soon he blacked out.

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><p>The Doctor awoke, panting, in a cold sweat, and sitting bolt upright. He brushed his shaggy hair out of his face and looked around the room. There was nothing but the furniture, the door that Rory insisted be left open while he was around, and River sleeping peacefully beside him. This must have been the suppression date- it can wake you up roughly sometimes. She stirred and her eyes opened slightly.<p>

"Are you alright?" She asked. "More nightmares?" They kept no secrets from one another, so she knew he sometimes had nightmares about some of the worst times and places he'd been to. River sat up, adjusting her pajamas, and took his hand.

"No. Actually, it was a very wonderful dream." He smiled a little and she raised an eyebrow. "I'll explain more in the morning. Go back to sleep." He kissed her softly and they lay back down.

"You're sure everything's alright?" The Doctor smiled to himself in the dark, and felt a now familiar pain in his chest come to life, one he experienced quite often around River. He'd come to realize the pain was caused by happiness.

"Never better."

It was a strange feeling to know that you knew the person you loved before you knew them. To know that you kissed before you kissed them, and that you loved them before you loved them. He wondered what it would have been like if she'd kept the change. Perhaps it might have been better, or maybe worse.

Remembering that day, seeing the look in her eyes, feeling her mouth against his for the first time… River was no longer the fictional character from the mysterious blue book. She was so much more- the woman he'd fallen hopelessly in love with, who had both intrigued and frightened him, and who had died for him to preserve what they had, but she had lost, rather than live without ever knowing it. Someday, too, she might be gone, but for now he concentrated on the present, where she was safe in his arms and the Library was something from a lifetime ago.

And maybe, someday, it would be a lifetime ago for them both. He would only have to figure it out first.

**Thanks for reading! Please Review :)**


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